In order to post photos here or have an avatar photo you need to create an account at one of the free photo hosting sites on the web because you cannot directly link to pictures on your own computer, nor can you upload them to this website.

NB You cannot link directly to photo album sites where you get pictures developed, like Shutterfly. The board software won't allow such links for security reasons -- there's a chance the board could be hacked using such a link because of the way the picture is accessed. The board is structured at basic code level not to allow such links to work and this cannot be changed.

I advise resizing photos to at or near the size you want BEFORE you upload them to a photo site. This makes uploading pictures much faster -- though the Flickr Uploader, a small programme you can download, will always ask you if you want to resize to upload faster and will then do this for you. You can resize too with most photo editing software but the easiest way, for Windows users, is to use the program Paint which comes with Windows.

Quote:

To find Paint, go to:

Start->Programs->Accessories->Paint

At the bar across the top of the window that has the image in it:

Click on Image->Stretch/Skew

In the Stretch Box, resize -- usually 50% is a good size.

Make sure and click File->SAVE AS and call it another name otherwise you will overwrite the original image file.

Right-click on the new pic and choose Properties, and you will see the size.

Now you have a smaller pic to upload. If the pic is for your avatar, please note the board guidelines for sizes and stay within those measurements. They can be found by going into the User CP (top left on orange navigation bar), then into Edit Avatar.

Once you have an account set up at Flickr or another hosting site, follow their directions for uploading your pictures.

To post pictures here, you copy the url for the picture from the hosting site.

Start a new thread or click 'reply' on an existing thread where you want to put your images.

You can insert a picture a number of ways. You can just type in the IMG tags around the URL for your picture, so that you see a line of text that looks like this:

[img]your URL[/img]

If you have set your User CP to show WYSIWIG editing, you can click on the icon of a mountain in a box and then just paste your picture url nto the box that opens up.

You can check to see if you image shows up by clicking the 'preview' button next to, and instead of, the 'submit' button. If the image shows up and you are ready to make the post, then click 'submit'.

Some pointers:

* Smaller pictures load faster and are easier to view than really large pictures.

* On Photobucket it is usually easier to size your pics, and then upload, rather than use Photobucket's own resizing options, which are only for 25%, 50% and 75%. Flickr automatically sizes for you. The 'thumbnail' size is the size of an avatar picture, but avatars will be automatically resized as long as the file size falls within the limit.

* Also if you resize your pics yourself, you won't run out of your quota space as quickly, if at all. It is the huge, full size, original picture files that eat up your storage space.

NEW technique for posting from Flickr:

They have just set up a new system.

Now, when you click into a pic, you just click on the dropdown menu 'share this' at the top left.

Then choose 'Grab the html/bbcode'.

Then click the BBcode button, NOT the html. You will get the code in a little box.

Select ALL of it, then just past in here directly (you do NOT need to use the 'image' button to create image tags).

If you want a different size, you can choose those in the 'actions' menu.